Video: Viewing and manipulating tracks

Once you have created some tracks in Pro Tools, there's a lot of ways to view and manipulate those tracks before, during, and after you record material onto them. Let's start with the Tracks list. As you'll notice, when I click a name of a track in the Tracks list, the name of the track gets highlighted here. That means it is selected. If I click this circle, it will hide the track. There are some other options here in the Tracks list menu, where you can show only certain types of tracks, you can hide selected tracks, and sort tracks.

Pro Tools 9 Essential Training with musician and producer David Franz demonstrates concepts and techniques necessary for recording, editing, mixing, and mastering in the industry-standard software for music and post-production. The course covers creating music with virtual instruments and plugins, editing with elastic audio for time and pitch manipulation, creating a musical score, and mixing with effects loops. Exercise files accompany the course.

Viewing and manipulating tracks

Once you have created some tracks in Pro Tools, there's a lot of ways toview and manipulate those tracks before, during, and after you record material onto them.Let's start with the Tracks list.As you'll notice, when I click a name of a track in the Tracks list, the name ofthe track gets highlighted here.That means it is selected.If I click this circle, it will hide the track.There are some other options here in the Tracks list menu,where you can show only certain types of tracks, you can hideselected tracks, and sort tracks.

You can also move tracks around pretty easily by clicking on the name of thetrack and dragging it, and the yellow line will indicate where it's going to go.One thing I highly recommend doing is naming your tracks.If you double-click on the name of the track, the name and comments come up, andyou can name the track.Now if you don't name the track, and then you record onto that track, the audiofiles or the MIDI regions that you record will be named the generic name shown here, audio1.

That's why I strongly recommend naming your tracks as soon as you make them, sothat the name gets associated with the track right from the beginning.You don't want to have a hard drive filled with a thousand audio1 files.Adding comments is also a great idea to give even more information about what'son the track, or even details about how it was recorded.Like if you're recording in electric guitar amp with the Shure SM57 mic, 1 inchfrom the left speaker, then those comments can show up in the comments field,and they will be in both the Edit and the Mix window.

So let's name this El Gtr, and I am going to hit the tab key to go downinto the Comments field, and I'll say, "SM57 on the left speaker 1 inch fromgrill." Press Return and that will show up in the Comments field.We can access that here, and I am going to drag this down to make the track taller.And if we go over to the Mix window, scroll down, and see that the comment isthere, and the track is named there as well.

Now there are bunch of comments that we can choose from the track menu thatapply to viewing and manipulating tracks.First one I want to do is Duplicate track, so you'll see that the electricguitar track is highlighted.If we duplicate it, we get the Duplicate Tracks dialog and we can choosewhat data to duplicate.I am going to keep all of this on here, but sometimes you might not want to keepall of these things on here.You can also make multiple duplicates.I will just make one. And you'll see that it automatically names the track El Gtr.dup1.

I would definitely rename this, and you might need to touch up the comments as well.With this track highlighted, if I go up to Track and choose Delete, it willautomatically delete that track.Unfortunately, this cannot be undone, so be careful when you decide to delete a track.Let's go back to the Edit window, and I am going to select the electricguitar track again.One of the coolest features in Pro Tools is the ability to make a track inactive.

If you go to Track > Make Inactive, you'll see that the entire track has been grayed out.You can still see it, but you won't hear anything on it, and it will not take upany computer resources.However, all the settings for the track and any audio or MIDI data that's on thetrack will be saved with the session, so this saves a lot of processing power.If you go back up to track and choose Make Active, then you can start using that track right away again, and you will be able to hear it.If you go back to the Mix window, you can actually click on the icon forthe track and choose make Inactive and make it active again by clicking on it again.

Now all of these things that I just mentioned we can actually access byright-clicking on the name of the track.So I just right-clicked, and now we can hide, we can make inactive, we canrename, we can delete tracks--most of things that you can do from the Track menu.So knowing all the ways to view and manipulate your tracks will enable you to bemore efficient when using Pro Tools.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

Already a member ?

Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
Learn more

Upgrade to our Annual Premium Membership today and get even more value from your lynda.com subscription:

“In a way, I feel like you are rooting for me. Like you are really invested in my experience, and want me to get as much out of these courses as possible this is the best place to start on your journey to learning new material.”— Nadine H.

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.